When I was eight, I found forty dollars crumpled in the street. I immediately bought a silver spray-painted one speed with a banana seat. It was my prize. When I was ten, I sold colorful soap in a parking lot to make money because I wanted my mom to have a bike too. I thought, She can’t live without a bike. I saved enough for a magnificent metallic red Schwinn with drop handlebars that glowed in the shop window. I couldn’t imagine anyone not dying over this bike, but my mother never rode it; she was puzzled by my enthusiasm. So every month, I tried to reach the pedals of the red beauty until one night I could press them forward, top tube be damned. I rocketed down the street, flushed, screaming in my throat, lightheaded near the curb.
I ride because that’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.

I grew up spin fishing for trout on small creeks in the Sierra, and I was always awestruck by the fly fishermen we ran into on the trail. Somehow, what they were doing always seemed mysterious and infinitely better than what we were doing. I badly wanted to crack the code, but fly fishing was far too exotic and expensive for a young boy to pursue. One year, I convinced my Mom to buy my Dad a fly rod and reel for Christmas, with the hope it would spark his interest and trickle down to me. Unfortunately he never used that rod, and I’m pretty sure it still hangs in his shed, nearly 40 years later. I can’t complain because we continued to fish in our old way, and my Dad’s love of the outdoors was a tremendous gift that helped shape who I am.

The perhaps not totally unexpected outcome of the story is that I eventually pursued fly fishing as an adult and ended up working in the fly fishing industry for 10 years as a shop manager, guide, travel host, and teacher.